Bite-Size Pieces

Thought for the day:  We cannot all do great things in life, but we can all do small things in great Love.  [Mother Teresa]

[source]

Do you ever feel a sense of impending doom? Like you're trapped and helpless, with a  pounding heart, and quivering legs, just waiting for the weight of the world to squish you like a pancake?

(Me neither.)

Even so, with a few minor changes, I'm gonna re-run a post that addresses that very issue. It first ran in August of 2011 as One Plus One Adds Up, and I think it's just as relevant now as it was then.











Thought for the day:  To know that even one life has breathed easier because you have lived, that is to have succeeded.   Ralph Waldo Emerson

Snoopy isn't the only one.

Life seems to be dishing out plenty of things to worry about these days, doesn't it? A number of the blogs I follow have reflected that worry, and it's generally lined with a layer of depression, and topped with a heaping dose of frustration. Even a Pollyanna like me has to admit that it can be downright discouraging to see that humanity's still struggling with some of the same old scourges it's dealt with time and time again: hunger, poverty, racism, injustice, ignorance, war, famine, terrorism,  etc, etc, etc.

                                                  But it doesn't have to be discouraging.

Life's problems can be overwhelming.

                                                            But they don't have to be.

If we allow ourselves to dwell on the overwhelming magnitude of global problems, it's gonna get us down. I mean, what can we DO about those monumental problems but fret and worry about them?

                                                  Actually, there is something we can do.

                                                                 It's time for a story:

A woman was walking along the beach on a beautiful sunny day. All was right in her world, until she came to a stretch of sand covered with starfish — thousands and thousands of starfish. All colors, all sizes, as far as the eye could see. As she looked down at them, she was overwhelmed with sadness, because she knew the poor things were all doomed to die there on that beach. 

But she bent over, and very gently picked up one of the starfish, and threw it splat! into the water.

Another woman came along, and stood watching with a sneer on her face, as the first woman continued to pick up the starfish, one at a time, and toss them splat! into the water.

"You're a fool!" the second woman. "You can't save all those starfish!"

                                            "No," said the first woman. "But I can save...

THIS one ...

and THIS one ...

And THIS one!"

When the big picture is too enormous to deal with in one unwieldy chunk, the best way to cope may be to break it into smaller pieces. No, that woman couldn't save every starfish, and it's true that even if she worked day and night until she collapsed in exhaustion, her rescue efforts wouldn't make much of a difference in the grand scheme of things, especially to the thousands of starfish that died in the sand.

But her efforts made a tremendous difference to the starfish she did save.

The same concept applies to each of us. Maybe we can't solve the world's problems, but we can make a positive difference in the lives of the people we encounter every day. Something as simple as a smile and a kind word can have an enormous impact on someone's day and outlook. A smile may be over in a flash, but the memory of it may last a lifetime. 

And we can do MORE.

Part of the frustration so many people feel at the scope of world problems these days comes from of a sense of helplessness. But we aren't helpless. We can brighten the corner where we are. We can volunteer and make a positive difference in our communities. There are programs in every town in this country, for sure, and possibly in most towns in the world, where volunteers can help the hungry, the sick, the poverty-stricken. An ant can't fit an entire cow into its mouth, but it can eat it... the trick is to break it down into bite-sized pieces.

Let's save as many starfish as we can.

                                        Until next time, take care of yourselves. And each other.

With a Little Help From a Friend

Thought for the day:  Some people claim to love humanity. It's people they can't stand.

Like last Monday's story about the starfish stranded on the shore, when you consider the hungry and homeless as a faceless crowd, it can be quite overwhelming and depressing. But just as that one woman was able to help individual starfish, one by one, so too can we help the homeless and hungry when we learn to see them as individual people, and to treat those individuals with respect and human dignity. One way to do that is by volunteering at a soup kitchen.

I don't know when they were first called soup kitchens, and I don't know how many of them have actually provided soup. But when you hear the phrase, you know what it means. It's a place where people in want can find nourishment. I can't speak for any other location, but I can say that at the downtown Atlanta soup kitchen where I volunteered for many years, I don't remember us ever serving soup. Not even once.

But OY! the peanut butter!

Our volunteer group of five or six would meet at our church, secure our valuables in the trunk of one of the cars we left behind, and then carpool to downtown Atlanta. We usually got to the kitchen, located in the basement of a huge church, just before 9AM, and the first order of business was making peanut butter and  honey sandwiches. We went through a ton of peanut butter, too. Not little wimpy jars, like in the picture, but enormous 3-gallon plastic containers of it, into which we stirred big gobs of honey. (The mixture turned into an unbelievably sticky ooey gooey mess, but it was a NUTRITIOUS sticky ooey gooey mess.) Our first job was to make trays and trays of sandwiches, and line 'em up and stack 'em up, sixty to a tray. Most of the bread was donated by local grocery stores, and most of it was fit to eat. Our group always threw away the moldy and brick hard breads, but unfortunately, that may not have been the case for all groups.

In addition to the sandwiches, there was always some sort of hot food. Usually a casserole of some type plus one or two vegetables. The cook was a former homeless man himself, and though he may not have been a world renown chef, he was reliable and hard-working. Some of his casseroles smelled a little "off" and barely looked edible, but rarely did we ever hear a complaint about the food. Occasionally, a chuckle, though. When some of the fancy catered parties in the area had leftover food, they'd donate it to the kitchen, so sometimes we served the prettiest little hors d'oevres and petit fours you ever saw.

Great Depression bread line

Some mornings,  people were already milling around outside when we got there, but most days, the line didn't start getting serious until about an hour before serving time, and by the time we opened the doors, it'd be snaking around the corner and way down the street. Reminded me of the pictures I'd seen of the bread lines during the Depression.

When the doors were thrown open, throngs of  people would stream downstairs and line up single file at the serving counter. Most of the volunteers stayed in the kitchen, and were kept busy filling plates and placing them on the counter or handing them out to the clients as they filed by. At the end of the counter were the sandwiches. Only one plate of food to a customer, but there was no limit on the sandwiches, so most ate one or two with lunch and took another one or two with them when they left.

But I didn't want to stay in the kitchen. I chose to go into the dining area. It was a cavernous room, dimly lit, with rows and rows of cafeteria tables on each side, and an aisle down the middle. An old piano sat against one wall, and occasionally someone would play it. Really well, too. And others might gather around and sing. Anyway, with a pitcher of black coffee in one hand, a pitcher of coffee with cream in the other, and apron pockets stuffed with sugar packets, I made the rounds through the room as the Coffee Lady. It was the job I always wanted, and it's a good thing, too, because no one else wanted to do it.

Spending time in the dining area gave me the opportunity to get to know some of the people, to talk with them, to listen to their stories. To know them as PEOPLE. 

Most of the clients were men, but there were also a lot of women and children. Whole families, many of whom bowed their heads and said grace together before eating. Some clients had mental health problems, and some had drug problems or reeked of alcohol. One man I assumed to be schizophrenic would hunch over his food, babbling incoherently, and watching others with eyes filled with fear and distrust. But each time I passed him, he'd grab my arm and say, quite clearly and desperately, Pray for me. There was a group of thirty-something men who usually sat together, and they all had AIDS. Those who lived in shelters were generally clean, but those who lived on the streets were in dire need of soap and deodorant, and possibly delousing. Several women wore multiple layers of clothes, regardless of the temperature, because they were wearing every piece of clothing they owned. Another lady pushed around a grocery cart filled with all her worldly goods, and the only way she could eat was if someone carried food outside to her. 

Two people in particular stick in my mind. One was a timid young woman. She asked for such a simple thing. A tampon. Which we didn't have. Can you imagine how terrible that was for her? And my purse was twenty miles away, so I couldn't even give her money to buy any. But her shy request made me aware of yet another awful aspect of homelessness I'd never before considered. And have never since forgotten.

The other person was a homeless man, maybe in his thirties or early forties, but he looked much older. What's that expression? Rode hard and put up wet. Anyhow, we always chatted. Like friends, ya know? Laughing, kidding. He was an alcoholic, but he was battling it, and battling it hard, and making baby steps toward sobriety. One day, when he came in, he walked right up to me and kissed me on the cheek. (Man, you should've seen the looks I got from the other ladies from church. Looked like they'd all sucked on a lemon.) But the thing is, that man was celebrating six months' sobriety that day, and he wanted to share his joy, his pride, with ME. Like a friend, ya know? To tell the truth, I felt honored. (Last I heard, he was still sober. And had a job.)

The thing with the homeless, with the poverty-stricken, is sometimes we forget to look at them as people, and forget they have personal stories that brought them to such a rough patch in life. It's much easier to dismiss them if we lump them all together under a single label, but it's much harder to forget them once we see them as individuals. You'd be amazed how many homeless men are military veterans, suffering with PTSD or drug and alcohol problems. You also might be surprised to know many of those homeless people used to have homes and hopes, good-paying jobs and responsibilities, how many of them lost everything and everyone because of catastrophic illnesses. But whatever their story, no matter their lot, they are still PEOPLE. Sadly, sometimes even they seem to forget, as though they've swallowed the poisonous propaganda insinuating that the homeless are somehow less than human. They shuffle their feet. Their shoulders are slumped. Their eyes are downcast.

BUT ...

 It's amazing what being treated with respect can do for them. What a difference a hot meal, a simple conversation, a joke, a shared laugh can make. It can make a homeless man feel comfortable enough to kiss a friendly suburban gal . . . a friend . . . on the cheek.

Until next time, take care of yourselves. And each other.

One Plus One Adds Up

Thought for the day:  To know that even one life has breathed easier because you have lived, that is to have succeeded.   Ralph Waldo Emerson

Snoopy isn't the only one.

Life seems to be dishing out plenty of things to worry about these days, doesn't it? A number of the blogs I follow have reflected that worry, and it's generally lined with a layer of depression, and topped with a heaping dose of frustration. Even a Pollyanna like me has to admit that it can be downright discouraging to see that humanity's still struggling with some of the same old scourges it's dealt with time and time again: hunger, poverty, racism, injustice, ignorance, war, famine, terrorism,  etc, etc, etc.

But it doesn't HAVE to be discouraging.

Life's problems can be overwhelming.

But they don't HAVE to be.

If we allow ourselves to dwell on the overwhelming magnitude of problems in the whole of the world, it's gonna get us down. I mean, what can we DO about all those problems in the entire world but fret and worry about them?  Actually, maybe there is something we can do.

I'd like to tell you a story.

A woman was walking along the beach on a beautiful sunny day. All was right in her world until she came to a stretch of sand covered with starfish. Thousands and thousands of starfish. All colors, all sizes, as far as her eye could see, beautiful helpless starfish, and as she looked at them, she was overwhelmed with sadness, because she knew they were all doomed to die there on that beach.

So she bent over, and very gently picked up one of the starfish, and threw it back splat!  into the water. Another woman came along, and stood there watching with a sneer on her face, as the first woman continued to pick up the starfish, one at a time, and toss them splat! back into the water.  

"You're a fool!" the second woman said derisively. "Look at all those starfish! All you're doing is kidding yourself, and wasting your time, because you will NEVER be able to save all of those starfish!"

"No," said the first woman with a smile. "But I can save ...

THIS one ...

and THIS one ...

And THIS one!

When the "big picture" is just too damned big to deal with, sometimes the best thing we can do to cope with it is simply break it down into smaller pieces. No, that woman couldn't save every single starfish stranded on that beach, and one might argue that even if she worked day and night until she collapsed in exhaustion, her rescue efforts wouldn't make much of a difference in the grand scheme of things, especially to the thousands of starfish that died in the sand.

But her efforts made a tremendous difference to each and every one of those starfish she DID save.

The same concept applies to each of us. Maybe we can't solve the world's problems, but we CAN make a positive difference in the lives of the people we encounter every day. Something as simple as a smile and a kind word can have an enormous impact on someone's day and outlook. A smile may be over in a flash, but the memory of it may last a lifetime.

And we can do MORE.

Part of the frustration so many people feel at the scope of world problems these days comes from of a sense of helplessness. But we aren't helpless. We CAN "brighten the corner where we are." We CAN volunteer and make a positive difference in our communities. There are programs in every town in this country, for sure, and possibly in most towns in the world, where volunteers can help the hungry, the sick, the poverty-stricken.

Next Monday, I'll tell you a little bit about what it's like to volunteer in a soup kitchen. No, my work never did a thing to ease world hunger, but it did make a difference in the lives of the people, the families, the many children who left there with a full stomach.

Let's save as many starfish as we can.

Until next time, take care of yourselves. And each other.